.30 Carbine Ruger Blackhawk, Who Has One, What Works Best For You?

I fooled a bit with the .30 Carbine Ruger Blackhawk when I worked for the company, but never owned one until recently. My memory of firing the revolver when at Ruger in the 1980s was that military ammo was unpleasantly noisy and chronographed about 1400 fps, comparing to the 7.62x25 Tokarev, but with a heavier bullet. Chambers needed to be kept clean and free of oil as any residues not removed causes cases to set back and bind against the recoil shield. 

I never used handloads, but agree with what others have posted here and elsewhere that the .30 Carbine Ruger is best viewed as a “rimless .32-20” which safely handles ’92 Winchester style rifle loads. The New Model Blackhawk cylinder does not have the recessed case heads of earlier guns, so there is adequate head clearance from the cylinder to use trimmed .32-20 brass. This makes it easy to keep moderate .32-20 loads separate from full-up “Ruger Only loads” in .30 Carbine brass.   Starline .32-20 brass drops into my Blackhawk cylinder without trimming.

My New Model Blackhawk was made in 1978. Cylinder gap is pass 0.003”, hold 0.004” with cylinder throats a uniform .310” all the way around, so the gun will be shot straight up with no mods. Cartridges loaded with Hornady 90-grain XTP bullets, which measure .309", chamber nicely. Cast bullets sized to .311” and loaded in Starline brass similarly drop into the chambers of their own weight, as long as the exposed ogive is smaller than .310 to enter the throats. I  have ordered a 31-100T mold cut to fit from Accurate which has its .310 nose with specified "nose tolerance negative." I ordered the plain base 100-grain mold initially because I wanted to approximate .32-20 ballistics and don't intend to hotrod it. I want to see how low I can go and still have a load which will cycle the GI M1 carbine for use as a small game gun, sort of like a semi-auto .32-20.  If I want higher velocity I’ll probably just load jacketed bullets.

Tom Ellis at Accurate molds also cut for me 31-120TG which has the same profile with 0.09” gascheck shank added at the base, for .645” overall length and 120 grains in wheelweights. Point of impact is MUCH higher in the revolver, so I'll use this in the M1 Carbine for full charge loads which are harder than optimum for the plainbased bullet.